It's really a small world... I lived on Okinawa from March 1970 to September 1971 courtesy of the U. S. Army. I lived in Futemma, and my Okinawan next door neighbor played the samisen every evening with his family sitting with him on the floor in a circle. At the time I was half a world from home and this was a really magical experience for me that I've never forgotten. I got interested and discovered that the samisen version of the banjo had been played for at least 500 years.

This is a flyer of the Commodore Matthew C. Perry's Minstrel Show in Okinawa in 1854, which was published in the "Jonathan Goble of Japan". Jonathan Goble (1827-1926). Goble first visited Japan as a marine in Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition of 1853-54.